Expiating Him

V. t E a s I n G

ANGIE

"Ooh, I have an idea," I said, with a wicked smile on my face.

Noel probably figured out what was going on in my mind so he started shaking his head and saying, "No. Nope. That is not happening."

"Oh yes, it so is," I sang, earning a pillow smack from him on my face.

Izzy caught on after a while and started laughing, leaving Enzo to be the only clueless person in the room.

"We're pairing you up with Bourbour here," I looked towards Enzo and stated.

After our paint disaster, Benji came upstairs to check on us when he heard us laughing and shrieking like banshees. His eyes widened quite noticeably when he saw paint splattered all over our clothes, the carpet and the floor. Apart from that, our little incident wasn't enough to obtain a reaction from him. And if I'm being honest, I don't think this is the worst he has seen. When the three of us get together there is always something bound to happen. And now we even had Enzo with us.

My comforter and sheets were soaked, even the curtains weren't spared. He walked to the balcony, analyzed the situation of the garden below and then walked back into the room. He remained composed throughout and that was more frightening than him shouting at us. Then, he just stood in front of us and told us, no, ordered us calmly, "I want you all cleaned up and in fresh clothes by the end of the hour. You will wash your clothes till not a drop of paint is left on them. After that, you all will take out Eva's mattress, her sheets, her covers and her curtains, and bring them downstairs. You're all going to work together and take out the stains from the carpet, the floor and the balcony before they dry up even more and become difficult to take out."

Between dividing the work and complaining about who had the easier task, it took us around four hours to get all this done. After that, neither did Enzo and I want to complete the wall, nor did Izzy and Noel feel like going bowling.

So, we took residence in Noel's room for the rest of the day, because Benji had asked us to stay out of mine. We had cleaned up everything, but he just had to see if there was anything left and get it done.

That's when we decided to play 21 questions, but a little differently. Instead of playing it individually, we were going to play it in teams and change it up a bit, something Noel and I came up with while we were in Brisbane.

"Why did we have to do all the work, though?" Enzo groaned as he turned around to lie on his stomach with his head in his hands, "You live in a mansion, you have so many people at your beck and call, so why did we have to clean everything up. Couldn't they have done it?"

"ZAC! Get over it. It's not a big deal," Izzy scolded him, at the same time Noel said, "Nope. Benji said we had to."

"Yeah, but why do we have to listen to him? He's just your butler isn't he."

Oh no, shouldn't have said that.

"You still have all of your other workers who could've cleaned the room," he continued, "they would have done it faster, and done a better job of it.

"Okay, first of all, Benji is not just our butler. He has been living with us since before I was born. He has carried me in his arms when he was just a teenager and I was not even a few days old. He is like the older brother I never had. So don't ever say that again.

"And that's just how Benji is. He isn't just here to work for us. He has always taught us how to be responsible and not depend on others for our work."

"Okay, then why didn't he scold us for dirtying up your room."

"That's just how he is, how he has always been," Noel answered, repeating what I just said, "He never scolded us for screwing things up. He never stopped us from creating a mess. There was only one thing he would say, 'Do what you want, but only when you're ready to face the consequences.'